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(3) It is possible for God to exist. Actually, no, it's not, at least not a God which is both omniscient and omnipotent. Omniscience and omnipotence cannot co

by lisper 3y ago

(3) It is possible for God to exist. Actually, no, it's not, at least not a God which is both omniscient and omnipotent. Omniscience and omnipotence cannot co-exist; they are logically incompatible. If there is an omniscient being, then all action must be in accordance with what that being foresees. Anything not foreseen by an omniscient being is impossible, ergo omnipotence is impossible in the face of omniscience.

colechristensen 3y ago
Given such a being was subject to time and logic in this universe. I’m a programmer, I create a universe that is a single round of the game of pong. I can trivially have knowledge of every single thing that happens in the history of this universe, I can change any of it, I can know precisely how it will play out beginning to end. Nothing is unknowable, nothing is unchangable. If your god is outside the confines of your universe, there’s no contradiction.
- lisper 3y ago
  That is the standard apologetic but it doesn't work. Complete knowledge of a finite domain like pong is not omniscience. Omniscience is full knowledge of everything, including the future. To know the future, you have to be able to solve the halting problem (among other challenges). Of course we can postulate that God has (or is) an oracle for the halting problem, but that still doesn't make him omniscient, it just pushes the problem one level higher. An oracle for the halting problem can (by definition) solve the halting problem for ordinary Turing machines, but it cannot solve the halting problem for Turing machines augmented with an oracle for the halting problem for ordinary Turing machines. Such machines (let's call them meta-TMs) have their own halting problem which cannot be solved by a meta-TM. We can hypothesize a meta-oracle which solves the halting problem for meta-TMs, yielding a meta-meta-TM, and so on. But at every level there is still an unsolvable halting problem. It is not possible to close this loop for the same reason that it is not possible to enumerate the real numbers by repeated diagonalization, or to enumerate the transfinite ordinals. So in fact it is a much weaker condition that makes God impossible, namely, that omniscience is impossible. (It immediately follows that omnipotence is also impossible.) But that's a harder case to make because it requires an understanding of the halting problem. You might enjoy reading this: https://blog.rongarret.info/2018/01/a-multilogue-on-free-will.html https://blog.rongarret.info/2018/01/a-multilogue-on-free-wil...
  - throw0101b 3y ago
    > Omniscience is full knowledge of everything, including the future. Speaking of "the future" with respect to an eternal being† is non-sensical, as it is outside of time. † Strictly speaking God is not a [bB]eing (not even the Supreme Being), but Being itself: see the term/concept of "ipsum esse subsistens".
    - lisper 3y ago
      The being (or whatever you want to call this thing) might be outside of time, but to be omniscient it still has to know about things that happen in time.
      - throw0101b 3y ago
        From Five Proofs of the Existence of God, Edward Feser (2017), Chapter 6 (§Omniscience), pp. 212f: > Recall that I emphasized that God can hardly be mistaken about the cat being on the mat, insofar as he is the cause of the cat's being on the mat in thefirst place. I compared this to an author's knowledge of the characters and events of the story he has come up with. Now, the way an author knows these characters and events is not by observering them. It is not a kind of perceptual knowledge. Rather, the ahtor knows them by virtue of knowing himself, by virtue of knowing his own thoughts and intentions as author. And that is precisely the way in which God knows the world. His knowledge is not the result of a kind of observation of that happens as history unfolds. God is not, after all, in time, and thus he does not need to wait until something happens in order to know that it happens. Nor does he have a perceptual organs by which he comes to know things, since he is incorporeal. Nordoes he learn anything in any other way, since learning is a kind of change and God is immutable. As I said above, it is in a single, timeless act that God causes to exist everything that has been and will be. And it is in knowing himself as so acting that God knows everything that is, has been, and will be. His knowledge of the world is a consequence of his self-knowledge.[48] > [48] See Katherin A. Rogers, Anselm on Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 158f. Following pages go into free will and such. If you think you've come up with some clever objection(s), that have not been considered over the centuries by folks that are probably smarter than both of us put together, you're probably wrong. :) I'd recommend this book for steelman coverage of the topic: * * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-the-existence-of-god https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-...
throw0101b 3y ago
> Omniscience and omnipotence cannot co-exist; they are logically incompatible. Aquinas, in his Summa Contra Gentiles, for one would disagree. See Theorem 11 (and corollaries): * https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/11/first-way-part-iv-cascades.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/11/first-way-part-iv-casca...
- lisper 3y ago
  Aquinas is transparently wrong. > As the singular First Mover (§2), the BPA is the common source of all powers. No. At best the BPA is the common source of all powers that actually exist. Some powers cannot exist because they are logically impossible, and acting against the predictions of an omniscience is, by the definition of omniscience, logically impossible. Nothing, not even God, can act against the predictions of an omniscience for the same reason that nothing, not even God, can create a four-sided triangle.
antihipocrat 3y ago
The classic example is could an omnipotent God create a state where it is not omniscient? If not then God is not omnipotent, and if so then God is only omnipotent. If God is only omnipotent could it create a rock it could not lift? Both answers cancel God's omnipotence, and no God remains.
- lisper 3y ago
  Yes, exactly. The standard answer for this is to exclude the logically impossible from the definition of omnipotence. I'm pointing out that if there is an omniscient entity, then anything not known to that entity is logically impossible -- that is what omniscience means.

by lisper 3y ago

colechristensen 3y ago

Given such a being was subject to time and logic in this universe. I’m a programmer, I create a universe that is a single round of the game of pong. I can trivially have knowledge of every single thing that happens in the history of this universe, I can change any of it, I can know precisely how it will play out beginning to end. Nothing is unknowable, nothing is unchangable. If your god is outside the confines of your universe, there’s no contradiction.

lisper 3y ago
That is the standard apologetic but it doesn't work. Complete knowledge of a finite domain like pong is not omniscience. Omniscience is full knowledge of everything, including the future. To know the future, you have to be able to solve the halting problem (among other challenges). Of course we can postulate that God has (or is) an oracle for the halting problem, but that still doesn't make him omniscient, it just pushes the problem one level higher. An oracle for the halting problem can (by definition) solve the halting problem for ordinary Turing machines, but it cannot solve the halting problem for Turing machines augmented with an oracle for the halting problem for ordinary Turing machines. Such machines (let's call them meta-TMs) have their own halting problem which cannot be solved by a meta-TM. We can hypothesize a meta-oracle which solves the halting problem for meta-TMs, yielding a meta-meta-TM, and so on. But at every level there is still an unsolvable halting problem. It is not possible to close this loop for the same reason that it is not possible to enumerate the real numbers by repeated diagonalization, or to enumerate the transfinite ordinals. So in fact it is a much weaker condition that makes God impossible, namely, that omniscience is impossible. (It immediately follows that omnipotence is also impossible.) But that's a harder case to make because it requires an understanding of the halting problem. You might enjoy reading this: https://blog.rongarret.info/2018/01/a-multilogue-on-free-will.html https://blog.rongarret.info/2018/01/a-multilogue-on-free-wil...
- throw0101b 3y ago
  > Omniscience is full knowledge of everything, including the future. Speaking of "the future" with respect to an eternal being† is non-sensical, as it is outside of time. † Strictly speaking God is not a [bB]eing (not even the Supreme Being), but Being itself: see the term/concept of "ipsum esse subsistens".
  - lisper 3y ago
    The being (or whatever you want to call this thing) might be outside of time, but to be omniscient it still has to know about things that happen in time.
    - throw0101b 3y ago
      From Five Proofs of the Existence of God, Edward Feser (2017), Chapter 6 (§Omniscience), pp. 212f: > Recall that I emphasized that God can hardly be mistaken about the cat being on the mat, insofar as he is the cause of the cat's being on the mat in thefirst place. I compared this to an author's knowledge of the characters and events of the story he has come up with. Now, the way an author knows these characters and events is not by observering them. It is not a kind of perceptual knowledge. Rather, the ahtor knows them by virtue of knowing himself, by virtue of knowing his own thoughts and intentions as author. And that is precisely the way in which God knows the world. His knowledge is not the result of a kind of observation of that happens as history unfolds. God is not, after all, in time, and thus he does not need to wait until something happens in order to know that it happens. Nor does he have a perceptual organs by which he comes to know things, since he is incorporeal. Nordoes he learn anything in any other way, since learning is a kind of change and God is immutable. As I said above, it is in a single, timeless act that God causes to exist everything that has been and will be. And it is in knowing himself as so acting that God knows everything that is, has been, and will be. His knowledge of the world is a consequence of his self-knowledge.[48] > [48] See Katherin A. Rogers, Anselm on Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 158f. Following pages go into free will and such. If you think you've come up with some clever objection(s), that have not been considered over the centuries by folks that are probably smarter than both of us put together, you're probably wrong. :) I'd recommend this book for steelman coverage of the topic: * * https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-the-existence-of-god https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35592365-five-proofs-of-...

throw0101b 3y ago

> Omniscience and omnipotence cannot co-exist; they are logically incompatible. Aquinas, in his Summa Contra Gentiles, for one would disagree. See Theorem 11 (and corollaries): * https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/11/first-way-part-iv-cascades.html https://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/11/first-way-part-iv-casca...

lisper 3y ago
Aquinas is transparently wrong. > As the singular First Mover (§2), the BPA is the common source of all powers. No. At best the BPA is the common source of all powers that actually exist. Some powers cannot exist because they are logically impossible, and acting against the predictions of an omniscience is, by the definition of omniscience, logically impossible. Nothing, not even God, can act against the predictions of an omniscience for the same reason that nothing, not even God, can create a four-sided triangle.

antihipocrat 3y ago

The classic example is could an omnipotent God create a state where it is not omniscient? If not then God is not omnipotent, and if so then God is only omnipotent. If God is only omnipotent could it create a rock it could not lift? Both answers cancel God's omnipotence, and no God remains.

lisper 3y ago
Yes, exactly. The standard answer for this is to exclude the logically impossible from the definition of omnipotence. I'm pointing out that if there is an omniscient entity, then anything not known to that entity is logically impossible -- that is what omniscience means.